Manuel Ramirez, who shot in the head Tuesday outside his home, died of his injuries Thursday. / The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal

WILMINGTON, Del. -- A landscape worker who was shot Tuesday evening outside his home is the second member of a family that fled war-torn El Salvador to die violently in Delaware.

Manuel Ramirez, 42, died Wednesday night at Christiana Hospital, where he was taken with what family members said was a single gunshot wound behind one ear, inflicted minutes after he got home from work.

His sister, Anabel Ramirez-Sanchez, was killed in July 2008 in the crossfire of a gun battle in Wilmington as she took her then-2-year-old daughter, Estrella, out of her car.

Ramirez's longtime friend, Yersson Valle of Wilmington, said, "He and his sister came to the United States to escape the violence of their home country, El Salvador."

Ramirez â?? known to friends as "Trucco" â?? was killed as he was starting to adjust to life without his sister, handling all the arrangements of his young niece's care when other relatives were at work.

In his sister's killing, Victor Grantham, 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder the following year and was sentenced to 30 years.

In Ramirez's killing, police have no suspects.

Residents of Rose Hill Gardens â?? a small mobile home village and apartment complex south of Wilmington city limits â?? said they heard what sounded like a single firecracker.

"Bang," one man said Tuesday night. "That's all."

Ramirez's 10-year-old daughter ran to neighbors's homes. They said she was very upset, yelling, someone had shot her dad.

The shooter was described as bald, about 30 years old with an average build. The man was wearing a bluish-green shirt, Officer First Class Tracey Duffy said.

Similar to his sister's shooting, family members and friends believe Ramirez was a victim of mistaken identity.

His nephew, Alejandro Vasquez, 18, said two neighborhood men had a confrontation with a group of men at a liquor store to the trailer park the night before his uncle was shot.

Later, one of the neighborhood men involved in the conflict was jumped by an unidentified man, he said.

Vasquez, who also lives there, said the family believes the other men from the liquor store dispute mistook his uncle for one of the men with whom they argued.

Police have declined to comment on a motive for the slaying.

Valle saw one big difference in the way the siblings died.

While Ramirez-Sanchez was in the wrong place at the wrong time, his friend was killed deliberately, said Valle, who is from Chile. "Somebody put the gun to his head and shot him," he said.